The Spider Spins Within
by marmite-on-toast
Summary: Bond gets audited for his expenditure. Then he's off to Socotra in the Gulf of Aden.
1. Expense accounts

1.

"Are you suggesting that you're paying me too much, to risk my life?" Bond stared down at the man behind the desk.

"Your salary is considered appropriate remuneration for they type of, er, work you undertake. It's just the _additional _expenses incurred on your behalf that have flagged-up your file for our attention."

"I see, so I'm no longer worthy of First Class airfares?"

"Airfares?" The man in the suit paused. "We'll look into those. I refer more to the three customized Aston Martins you've destroyed in the past two years." A man to the right of the speaker shuffled some papers across the desk. Looking down at them the speaker continued, "At a cost to her Majesty's government of some nine hundred and thirty eight thousand pounds. Is this correct Mr Bond?"

Bond glanced behind him and raised a questioning eyebrow at "Q". Q anxiously nodded back confirmation.

"Well, with the first one, I", Bond began to reply.

"I hadn't finished Mr. Bond. In fact, I've barely begun. Were you responsible for the destruction of a brand new Sikorsky S-76 helicopter belonging to His Highness, Sheikh Habib Al Mohammed in the Sinai Penninsular in October 2010?

"Yes, I was." Replied Bond with an air of proud confidence.

"The Sheikh's helicopter was replaced by Her Majesty's Government, at a cost of eleven million, three hundred and sixty seven thousand pounds?"

"Really?" Replied Bond, "If you read the file on that case, you'll find that I was…"

"The file is classified, Mr Bond. We are accountants representing Her Majesty's Government, not the heads of secret spy agencies. We are simply interested in the numbers. Which brings us to the annihilation of a Sunseeker Predator 108 yacht in the Mediterranean Sea in March 2011?"

"I was nowhere near the boat when it sank." Replied Bond.

"But you were flying the G550 Gulfstream Jet that hit it, were you not?"

"Not when it _hit_ the yacht, no."

"Mr Bond, the fact that you jumped into the safety of the sea, seconds before you crashed a forty-five million pound plane into a five million pound yacht, does not entirely clear you of responsibility in this matter."

The sardonic tone of the accountant's voice grated on Bond's nerves. He ran his hands down the front of his Brioni jacket, feeling the quality of the smooth Italian fabric soothed his irritation. He wasn't sure which he found more unpleasant; the accountant's high-handed attitude or his cheap High Street suit. Bond decided he'd talk to Moneypenny and get himself on any current mission outside the UK, at least until the departmental budget had been revised. Then, thank god, the men-in-cheap-suits would disappear for another four years.


	2. The Hot and The Cold

It was like a labyrinth, soulless and never ending. Silent too, save for the steady rhythm of Bond's John Lobb leather soled loafers echoing down the long corridor. He found the door he'd been looking for. Taking a deep breath, he knocked and entered, unsure of what he was to be confronted with on the other side.

Unexpectedly, there was a petite blond girl typing at a desk. Bond walked slowly towards her and smiled as she looked up at him.

"James Bond. I have an appointment with Ann Dooney at 10am." He leaned on the desk staring down at her.

"I'll just let her know you're waiting." She smiled up at him with pretty green eyes.

Picking up the phone, she said; "Ms Dooney, number seven is in reception."

"That's double-o seven, not number seven," whispered Bond leaning in a bit closer, noticing the scent of her cheap perfume.

"Oh, I'll try to remember." She replied, sweetly meeting his gaze.

Then unexpectedly, she sat up straight and said, "Ms Dooney will see you now."

He turned his head to see a tiny, severe woman in her mid-forties. Even though she wore the highest, chunkiest heels Bond had ever noticed on a woman, she couldn't have reached more than five feet tall in them. Her auburn hair was scraped from her face and wound up tightly in a bun on the back of her head. Not a single stray hair made it onto her black suit. She stood motionless holding the door open behind her. Her humourless ice-blue eyes watched Bond rise from his almost horizontal position draped across the desk. He followed her into the adjacent office.

"I believe you and Mr Kite have already met." Next to her desk sat the accountant who he'd found so irritating on their previous meeting. This time he wore a navy suit, which Bond noticed looked old and slightly too small for him. Bond held out his hand to him and received his clammy shake in return.

"I'm Ms Dooney, Chief Actuary to the Ministry of Defence." She introduced herself, then sat behind an impressively large, oak desk. A desk she couldn't possibly have reached the edges of, Bond thought.

"Delighted to meet you." replied Bond. "I hope you'll excuse me for asking, but what exactly does that mean?"

"It means I control the budgets Mr. Bond." She said curtly. "Do you know why you've been called here?"

"I'm due a pay rise?" asked Bond.

"Incorrect." She answered without a trace of personality. "You are here Mr Bond because you have created a series of problems for our department. Problems which frankly, I'm tired of dealing with Mr. Bond." Next to her Mr. Kite nodded seriously. She ignored him.

"We have calculated that you cost the Ministry of Defence roughly two hundred and fifty million pounds in extraneous expenses during the past two financial years. Do you have anything to say about that?"

"Ah, am I here because I've lost some of my receipts?"

"Facetiousness is an unhelpful attitude to bring to this meeting, Mr. Bond. Do you have any idea how much the Trans-Siberian pipeline cost to repair, after you blew a hole in it?

"No, but plumbers don't come cheap." ventured Bond.

This remark was met with a deathly stare from Ms Dooney.

Chuckling at Bond's retorts, Mr. Kite added, "It was damned expensive. But we did manage to claw back some savings on the cost of the tidy-up. Luckily, BP offered us a really low price to clear up the oil slick, birds and all that environmental business."

The deathly stare was now directed at him.

Standing in front of her, Bond was reminded of being thirteen and expelled by the Provost at Eton. The only difference being that Ms Dooney was a lot more intimidating.


	3. Aster Spies Aden

"M" finished profusely apologising and put down the phone. When it came to dealing with difficult situations, a humble apology wasn't his preference, he used it as a last resort, to appease. Often, he suffered the side effect of a very bad mood following its use, and so for this reason, he avoided doing it as much as possible. He buzzed the intercom on his desk and called Miss Moneypenny in.

"007 needs something to get stuck into to take his mind off Ms Dooney."

"His mind's on Ms Dooney?" Asked Moneypenny with curious surprise.

"He's made quite an impression with her - or so she tells me. Quite a _bad_ impression. He'll probably be in my office within the next fifteen minutes. Let's make sure we're ready for him. Pull up the "White Lights" files, I'm sending him straight out into the field." Sighing, half to himself he said, "At least his wreckage out there _can_ be rectified with money."

Fifteen minutes later, Bond arrived at Miss Moneypenny's desk.

"Bond?" She said with playfully.

"I thought I'd take you by surprise, Moneypenny." He said confidently.

"I bet you have," She replied, "But you'll have to put that aside for now. Do go through, M's expecting you."

Bond raised his eyebrows and went through to M's office.

"Don't start 007, I've already heard all about it," said M raising his hands. "She's set your departmental liability at six million pounds."

"She can't put a price on the work I do," Bond's voice was full of restrained anger.

"Well she has. You know, you should try turning on the charm with women in the future, you might get better results."

"She's not a woman, she's something out Tolkien's middle earth." Replied Bond.

"She's allocated you six million. Cost the department anymore than that and it comes out of your own pocket." M said tersely, while noticing he was now in a really bad mood. "Your briefing is in here," He passed Bond a thick file. A picture on the wall of his office slid back and a flat screen monitor silently came to life.

"As you are probably aware," M clicked through imges on the screen as he spoke, "pirate activity off the Somali coastline has reduced dramatically in the past fifteen months. Publically, we're saying it's because of increased security, armed guards on vessels and a joint naval task force patrolling the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea. But something else is going on and we're not entirely sure what. The pirates are simply not interested and frankly not available in the numbers they once were. We suspect it has something to do with the disposal of toxic waste in the area."

"Wasn't that why they began in the first place, off shore dumping of Western toxic waste was depleting their fish stocks. The Ndrangheta Italian mafia clan, were behind it, as I remember."

"Correct, 007. The Ndrangheta won multi-million pound hazardous waste disposal contracts, then sank the carrier ships in deep waters off the coast of Somalia and Italy, instead of safely disposing of the waste. It caused massive health problems, cancers and alike, in the local populations and devastation of fish stocks. All this was exacerbated when the rotting barrels started washing up along the Somali shores after they were disturbed by the 2004 tsunami.

"So are the Ndrangheta dumping waste again?"

"It's not as simple as that. Right now there is a twenty-three nation naval coalition patrolling off the Somali coast code named "Combined Task Force 158". It is the strength of this coalition's relationships which has enabled us to gain valuable information from ASTER, which may not otherwise have been passed on to us."

"Who does Aster work for?"

"ASTER is basically a satellite. A joint project developed between NASA and Japan. By combining science and industry in both countries they have built a satellite capable of exception remote thermal sensing and long distance image capture. ASTER has been used amongst other things, to monitor ships carrying toxic waste through the Gulf of Aden.

"So Aster noticed a lot of waste being dumped?"

"Quite the reverse, they noticed waste being amassed. A very dangerous amount in fact."

"What for?"

"Well, that's your job actually, 007. We don't really know much about what's going on. Who would want to collect toxic waste and why is currently unanswerable. That's where you come in. Basically, the waste is moved to the Socotra archipelago by ship, then it just disappears."

"Wouldn't that more likely indicate it's being dumped or disposed of?"

"No, highly unlikely. If it were dumped it would still appear on thermal imaging scans. In order for it to fully disappear, it's got to be hidden. Therefore, you are to go to Socotra and find out what's happening and report back."

"Remember 007, we are part of a twenty-three country coalition in this area. Socotra is only 220 miles from Yemen, which is now largely under the control of Al Qaida. Many of the coalition governments have developed relations with the self-declared Independent State of Somaliland, which has put strain on their relations with the Federal Republic of Somalia. If Combined Task Force 158 were to be attacked by any country in this area, with either weaponry or toxic chemicals, it would ignite the coalition countries against the Middle East and quite possibly start of International warfare. There are many factions which would benefit from a war in these waters.

"What has Task Forice 158 found out from its own intelligence?" asked Bond

"Not much." Replied M., "The whole of the Gulf is as stable as thin ice. If we send naval vessels from any member country to snoop around Socotra, we're going to arouse suspicion that we're planning a base for a military strike against the Middle East. We cannot afford to engender those suspicions of aggression._s_


	4. Coffee with Q

Q arrived with a small black computer bag which he put on the floor next to his chair. He ordered a cappuccino and waited for Bond. His coffee as Bond sat down and ordered an Americano.

"So, what have you got for me?" asked Bond.

"The usual, it's in the bag."

"That's it?"

"Well, actually I brought you a new phone, one I developed myself." Replied Q with a hint of pride in his voice.

"What does it do?" Asked Bond

"Well, you can call and text. I've set it up for email and you can take video and photos with it."

"Are you serious?" Bond stared at Q.

"Yes, it unlocks with iris recognition and an 8 digit passcode." Q bent over the phone, keenly pressing it's touch screen. It's equipped with GPS, so M will know where you are, waterproof and has a titanium case. I've made it durable enough to survive being run over by a tank."

"I've never had anything so amazing in all my life" replied Bond, clearly less than impressed.

"I developed some apps for you." He brought the phone out as he spoke and scrolled down the touch screen. "It's got a Geiger counter, a green bar filled the screen. On the right it'll give you an exact reading, but basically if it's green you're fine, amber is a warning that you're close to low level radiation and red means get out of there. If it stops working altogether it means the radiation is so high it's blown the phone's core. You won't last more than half and hour or so at those sort of levels. "

Charming" said Bond, tapping the touch screen fairly randomly.

"Could you just treat it a bit gently please?"

"I thought it was indestructible," said Bond. "What's that red button?"

"Which one?"

"The one with bird on it?"

"Oh, er, it's nothing, I'll just take it off," Q hurriedly took the phone from Bond.  
"It says Angry Birds." Said Bond, looking over his shoulder.

"It's gone now." Q replied hastily. He did some reconfiguration on the phone and handed it back to Bond. Then lowering his voice, he said, "The gun's in the bag, pretty similar to last time. That's it, all I've got for you."

Bond picked up the bag and put the phone in his pocket. Leaving £5 on the table, he said to Q, "Be good at school." and walked decisively out of the coffee shop.


End file.
